


In Her Time of Dying - 14x18 Coda

by FunnyWings



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 14.18 coda, 14x18 coda, Angst, Cas POV, Episode: s14e18 Absence, Grieving, M/M, spoilers for 14x18, the mcd is a character who dies in canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 01:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18436517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunnyWings/pseuds/FunnyWings
Summary: Castiel and the boys grieve Mary's death as best as they know how.Excerpt:Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.A good translation. To the point, and without politics. Castiel has always appreciated when humans got the words right.The ashes of Mary Winchester float through the sunstained sky, dyed reds and purples. Even in death she’s a thing of beauty. They watch her, all three of them. There’s nothing else to be done.





	In Her Time of Dying - 14x18 Coda

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

A good translation. To the point, and without politics. Castiel has always appreciated when humans got the words right.

The ashes of Mary Winchester float through the sunstained sky, dyed reds and purples. Even in death she’s a thing of beauty. They watch her, all three of them. There’s nothing else to be done.

And Dean stands there, a short and yet insurmountable distance away. Castiel will be forgiven, he knows this already. He is always forgiven. He just wishes he could stop doing things he needed to be forgiven for. He just wishes…

In heaven, Mary Winchester’s door took hours to find. And yet it came too soon. Bobby, the first Bobby, the one who had begrudgingly treated him as a son, the one who had died not by his hand, but by his actions… Bobby had wanted to leave, when Castiel came to him for help. Castiel had thought Mary would be the same. There was a sameness between them, a gruff exterior guarding intelligence and softness and grace. It was why she and the second Bobby had gotten along. But when he had arrived at the door, Mary had looked at him. Just for a second, just long enough to shake her head.

She was with John. Not the real John. Even after everything, they didn’t share a heaven. Perhaps it was better that way. Perhaps not. He wasn’t sure if she was happy, but she was content. It was peaceful. It was a small Kansas movie theater on a mild summer night. Truth be told, it wasn’t a heaven Cas would have spent much time in back when he was in the habit of doing such things, but he had gained an appreciation for days like this. They reminded him of his own home, his own now dissolving family.

He left her there, knowing what that would mean. She had shaken her head. She wanted to stay.

She wanted…

“It’s time to go,” Dean says gruffly, wiping at his face. There are no tears there. Dean seems surprised by this, staring at his fingers a moment before his hands drop. “I’ll wait in the car.”

He doesn’t acknowledge either of them as he walks off. Cas makes to follow, but Sam stops him again. He holds on as Cas tries to push past him.

“Give him a second,” Sam says. He’s right. Of course, he’s right. Cas isn’t even sure what he wants from Dean. To be yelled at? To be disowned? To pay somehow for the wrongness of this situation. “It’s not your fault. He knows that, but…”

“It is my fault,” says Cas. “I sided with Jack. Always. I… I had such faith in him, and it blinded me. And as ever, someone else paid the price.”

Sam grimaces.

“Rowena said it was an accident.”

“Does that really matter?” Cas asks him, and Sam avoids his gaze. “I want Jack to come back to us. I want him to be okay. I want to give him a second chance and a third and so on until it all works again. But I can’t watch people die giving him those chances.”

“So you’re suggesting what exactly?” Sam asks. Cas swallows. It is his turn to look away.

“I don’t know. He’s… I saw him growing inside Kelly. Sometimes it felt like he was growing from pieces of me, too,” says Cas. As if Jack is truly his own flesh and blood somehow, and in the most viscerally human of ways. As if somehow Jack was birthed by him and Kelly both, and both died for it. Died for him. “I don’t know, Sam.”

Sam lets him walk to the car this time. He does not follow, choosing instead to watch the charring remains of the pyre. To see the burning to its bitter end. It’s his way, and Cas does not try to convince him otherwise.

Cas sits in the back of the Impala. He is met with silence. He taps it with the delicacy one might use on paper thin glass.

“I’m sorry.”

He knows he’s said those words too many times. They are tainted with baggage that has never been erased, never been fully reckoned with. He has no other words. He has no other options. He has seen this scenario played out, over and over, and he has never learned the right thing to say.

“Me too.”

The sky has darkened to a pre-dusk grey. Sam will join them soon. It will be a relief. A buffer. An unearned reprieve from the weight of Dean not looking at him.

“I remember,” Dean says after a moment. “I remember she was never really happy. Not here. I wanted her so bad to be happy. To let go of all the bullshit and just —“

Cas says nothing.

“She fell asleep on my shoulder once,” Dean mutters. “After a hunt. And her whole face just relaxed. Like she didn’t trust anyone else in the whole world more than me. I don’t… I can’t…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop telling me you’re sorry,” says Dean. It’s harsh. It’s a taste of what is coming, when the numbness leaves him and the anger sets in. “She was happy.”

“She was happy,” Cas repeats, and it doesn’t feel like a lie. She wanted to stay is the truth, the real truth. But he knows what that will do to Dean, to Sam. They’ll take it the wrong way. They’ll think it was about them. “She was at peace.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, okay.”

Sam has yet to materialize. Cas is beginning to wonder if he’s waiting for it to get bad. For this uneasy armistice to unravel so he can swoop in and play mediator. So he can distract himself.

“You’re angry at me.”

“I’m really not, Cas,” he says, after letting Cas stew in silence for a few moments. “I’m just angry. I just… The next time. The next time I end up on some slab somewhere. Burn me. Don’t fucking…”

No words of anger could have cut as deeply.

“Dean.”

“No, you owe me that much,” Dean says. “I want it permanent. No more fucking exceptions. Not for me. I’ve got too many people up there. I’m too tired, Cas.”

Sam sits down hard in the passenger side seat, the creak of the doors startling Cas and Dean both. He’s barely shut the door again before Dean is speeding away, putting as many miles between himself and his dead mother’s body as possible.

No one speaks. They hardly breathe.

There is a grim connectedness between the brothers that Cas feels is separate from himself. He does not feel excluded or ostracized, just foreign. Unable to find the words to explain the strange blankness he feels within himself. A step behind in his despair.

One by one, Castiel tucks away his memories of Mary Winchester. He files them carefully, lovingly, each in its proper place. Each ready to be revisited when he is not a revelation away from drowning in grief and pain and terror at what the future might bring.

And so the funeral procession drives into the night, because if there is one thing Castiel has learned since falling, since becoming human, since becoming divine once again, it is that there is only a finite amount of life.

But there is always more road.

**Author's Note:**

> In memory of Mary Winchester, one of the most badass women put to screen.


End file.
